DEDICATED 

TO  THE 


JVtembers  of  tlie  Lep*isla.ture? 


3 


3  vS 


^9 


'HdCiTYiS!  -Ur 

YOURS  IN  B( 

(/-«  Crouse  $10,000; 

CHARLES  CLEMENT, 

Disappointed  candidate  for  U.  S.  Marshal. 


5  .  ?7'/5  RECORD 


&H.5 


OP  TH 


m 


(i 


r 


HON.  JAMES  R.  DOOLITTLE 


IN  THE 


TWENTY-SEVENTH  CONGRESS. 


m 


Reader,  it  is  believed  the  following  extracts 
r  ’ 

rora  the  speeches  and  votes  of  Mr.  Doolittle, 
fairly  present  his  position  upon  the  great 
questions  of  the  day — and  it  is  for  yon  to 
say  whether  they  sustain  the  following  points : 

First.  He  appeals  to  the  lower  prejudices 
of  the  North,  and^claims  that  if  emancipated, 
the  colored  people  of  the  United  States  would 
bo  distributed  equally  all  over  the  free  states. 

Second.  He  has  tried  to, show  that  if  the 
blacks  were  emancipated  a  war  of  extermi¬ 
nation  would  take  place  between  the  two  ra¬ 


ces. 


Third.  By  the  above  and  kindred  argu¬ 
ments  he  has  shown  himself  to  be  the  ene¬ 
my  of  all  measures  for  the  immediate  and 
unconditional  emancipation  of  the  black  race 
in  this  country,  even  as  a  war  measure. 

Fourth.  He  is  opposed  to  any  vigorous  or 
efficient  confiscation  measure,  and  hag  con¬ 
tended  that  not  a  dollars’  worth  of  rebel  pro¬ 
perty  should  be  confiscated  until  the  rebel 
was  first  tried  and  convicted  by  a  jury  in  the 
state  where  the  offence  was  committed  i.  c., 
a  South  Carolina  rebel  must  be  tried  and 
convicted  by  a  jury  of  South  Carolinians — 
and  as  if  to  render  a  conviction  utterly  im¬ 


possible,  he  voted  further  to  prohibit  a  iuyal 
black  man  from  testifying  against  his  white 
rebel  master — and  this  too  in  localities  where 
his  is  the  only  evidence  that  can  be  made 
available  against  the  rebel. 

Fifth.  He  has  lost  no  occasion  to  sneer  at 
all  radical  and  earnest  men,  and  has  shown 
his  want  of  sympathy  with  the  black  race 
by  voting  repeatedly  in  Congress  against 
measures  specially  designed  for  their  relief. 

These  are  grave  charges  to  be  brought 
against  any  republican  Senator — and  espec¬ 
ially  when  that  Senator  comes  from  the  state 
of  Wisconsin.  If  they  are  not  sustained, 
they  should  not  be  listened  to  for  one  mo¬ 
ment — but  if  they  are  sustained,  even  sub¬ 
stantially,  by  the  record,  then  no  amount  of 
amiability,  capacity,  or  suavity  of  manna- 
should  be  allowed  to  weighMown  the  enlight¬ 
ened  conviction  of  any  man  claiming  to  act 
upon  tlie  good  old  American  maxim  of  indi¬ 
viduality  of  judgment. 

These  are  earnest  times.  No  man  should  lean 
upon  the  judgment  of  his  neighbor,  or  allow 
himself  to  be  swerved  from  that  lineofdufy — 
simple  and  plain — which  he  would  wish  to 
transmit  to  the  searching  criticism  o/ posterity. 


i/ 


2 


RECORD  OF  THE  HON. 


lhi«  record  is  worthy  of  a  dispassionate, 
but  thoughtful  perusal. 

«'•:  *  .  •  -Ii. ^  •  •  f  ^ 

HE  APPEALS  TO  NORTIIERN  PREJUDICE  AND 
CUPIDITY. 

“  How  do  tho  people  in  the  free  States 
stand  on  this  question  ?  In  my  State  there 
are  so  few  colored  men  that  there  is  now  no 
great  feeling  on  the  subject  one  way  or  the 
other;  but  suppose  it  should  now  be  propos¬ 
ed  to  distribute  the  whole  negro  population 
equally  among  the  states,  this  would  bring 
into  the  State  of  Wisconsin  about  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  twenty  thousand,  say,  seven  thou¬ 
sand  to  Milwaukee,  and  from  one  to  two 
thousand  to  each  of  the  towns  of  Racine, 
Madison,  Janesville,  Kenosha,  Watertown, 
Oshkosh,  I  ond  du  Lac,  and  other  places, 
what  would  be  their  feelings  then  ?  What 
would  our  people,  native  and  foreign  born, 
say  to  that?  Sir,  they  would  probably  feel 
and  say  just  what  the  people  of  Pennsylva¬ 
nia,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  feel  aud  say 
on  this  subject.  Illinois  has  just  held  a  con¬ 
vention,  and  formed  a  new  constitution, 
which  excludes  free  colored  men,  as  did  the 
old  constitution.  Indiana  has  a  similar  pro¬ 
vision,  either  by  constitutional  requirement 
or  by  legislative  enatinent.  Ohio  had,  until 
quite  recently,  a  law  by  which  a  free  colored 
man  was  required  to  give  bail  for  his  good 
behavior.  Nor  are  the  people  of  New  Eng¬ 
land  devoid  of  this  same  feeling  either.  By 
the  laws  of  Massachusetts  intermarriages  be¬ 
tween  these  races  are  forbidden  as  criminal. 
y*  hy  forbidden  ?  Simply  because  natural 
instinct  revolts  at  it  as  wrong.  Come  down 
to  the  practical  question  whether,  if  the 
whole  negro  population  of  the  United  States 
should  be  set  free,  and  bo  apportioned  and 
distributed  among  the  several  States,  and 
you  would  find  just  as  much  repugnance  in 
New  England  as  you  now  see  exhibited  in 
Illinois,  Indiana  or  Pennsylvania.” — Speech 
on  Emancipation ,  Daily  Globe ,  April  16, 
1862.  ' 

ANOTHER  VIEW. 

But,  it  is  dreaded  that  the  freed  people  will 
swarm  forth  and  cover  the  whole  land.  Will 
liberation  make  them  any  more  numerous  ? 
Equally  distributed  among  the  whites  of  the 
whole  country  and  there  would  be  but  one 
colored  to  seven  whites  Could  the  one  in  any 
way  greatly  disturb  the  seven  ?  There  are 
many  communities  now  having  more  than 
one  free  colored  person  to  seven  whites, 
and  this  without  any  apparently  conscious¬ 
ness  of  evil  from  it.  The  District  of  Colum¬ 
bia  and  the  States  of  Maryland  and  Dela¬ 
ware  are  all  in  this  condition.  The  District 
has  more  than  one  free  colored  to  six  whites, 


JA.UES  R.  DjLiTTLB 

and  yet  in  its  frequent  petitions  to  Congress, 

I  believe  it  has  pever  presented  the  presence 
of  free  colored  persons  as  one  of  its  grievanc¬ 
es.  But  why  should  emancipation  in  the 
South  send  the  freed  people  North  ?  Peo¬ 
ple  of  any  color  seldom  run,  unless  there  is 
something  to  run  from. — President  Lincoln's 
Annual  Jdecsage ,  Dec.  la£,  1862. 

PRACTICAL  WORKINGS. 

Correspondence  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 

Alton,  III.,  Nov.  29, 1862. 

The  slaveholders  of  Arkansas  and  Ten¬ 
nessee  nre  making  a  wise  preparation  for  the 
emancipation  of  their  slaves  under  the  Pres¬ 
ident’s  Proclamation.  Before  leaving  Hele¬ 
na,  a  few  weeks  ago,  I  learned  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  slaveholders  of  that  region  had 
already  entered  into  a  contract  with  their 
slaves  to  remain  on  the  plantations,  under 
wages.  They  have  come  to  tho  conclusion 
that  the  negroes  are  quite  as  necessary  to 
them  as  they  arc  to  the  negroes.  As  labor¬ 
ers  they  are  essential  to  the  South,  and  no 
class  will  be  more  opposed  to  their  coloniza¬ 
tion  in  a  foreign  country  when  the  war  is 
over,  than  their  former  masters. 

On  the  steamer  from  Memphis  to  Cairo  I 
learned  from  a  Mr.  Aiken,  a  cotton  planter 
from  Tennessee,  that  the  President’s  procla¬ 
mation  is  expected  to  go  into  effect  on  the 
first  of  January,  and  that  he  and  several  of 
his  neighbors  had  already  had  a  talk  with 
their  slaves,  and  agreed  with  them  that  they 
are  to  remain  as  hired  servants  and  receive 
wages. 

Mr.  Aiken  said  to  me ,  “Sir,  we  are  attach¬ 
ed  to  our  slaves.  Some  of  them  have  watch¬ 
ed  over  us  in  our  infancy;  some  of  them  have 
proved  their  fidelity  to  us  under  trying  cir¬ 
cumstances;  as  a  whole,  they  are  necessary 
to  us  as  laborers;  they  are  acquainted  writh 
the  cultivation  of  cotton,  our  staple  crop, 
and  we  prefer  them  to  any  new  set  of  labor¬ 
ers  that  we  are  likely  to  get.” 

He  claims  that  colonization  does  not  im¬ 
pede  emanicipation,  and  yet  strives  to  show 
that  the  one  is  impossible  and  undesirable 
without  the  other ! 

“  Jefferson  declared  it  impossible  for  the 
two  races,  in  large  numbers,  to  remain  to¬ 
gether  without  conflict,  equally  free.  Such 
is  the  opinion  of  all  Southern  men — slave¬ 
holders  and  non-slaveholders.  *  * 

“  Let  us  supposo  that  the  slave  were  all 
emancipated  and  that  they  were  placed  under 
as  good  circumstances  as  they  now  are  in 
New  England  or  Wisconsin  or  any  of  the 
States  where  they  are  accepted  with  the  most 
favor  and  the  least  objection,  do  not  these  cen¬ 
sus  returns,  with  their  inexorabl  i  logic  of 

■  V 


IN  THE  TWENTY-SEVENTH  CONGRESS. 


3 


figures,  show  that  like  the  Indian  race  they 
dwindle  and  dwarf  in  the  presence  of  the 
whiteman?  *  *  *  *  * 

“  Senators,  we  are  compelled  to  regard  as 
facts,  bearing  upon  what  will  not  occur,  or 
what  should  or  should  not  be  done ,  the  feel¬ 
ings  and  the  prejudices  of  mankind.  It  is 
it  not  altogether  probable  that  there  would 
be  little,  if  any,  increase  to  the  colored  pop¬ 
ulation  in  the  United  States  if  they  were  all 
now  as  free  as  they  are  in  New  England. 

*  *  *  *  * 

“  But  I  believe  these  questions  of  emanci¬ 
pation  and  colinization  are  so  connected  to¬ 
gether  in  those  States  where  slavery  now 
exists,  that  it  is  next  to  impossible  for  the 
friends  of  emancipation  there  to  get  a  hear¬ 
ing  by  the  people  of  those  States,  much  less 
to  proceed  with  emancipation  without  dis¬ 
cussing  and  carrying  forward  at  the  same 
time  a  system  of  colonization.  *  *  * 

“  They  tell  me,  Sir,  the  Senators  from  Vir¬ 
ginia,  the  Senator  from  Kentucky,  every  Sen¬ 
ator  coining  from  these  States,  and  every 
man,  woman  and  child  who  conies  from  these 
States,  tells  me  it  is  utterly  impossible  for 
them  to  talk  of  emancipation  within  any 
Slave  State  without  connecting  with  it  the 
idea  of  colonization.  *  *  *  * 

“  I  cannot  but  remember  that  in  this  coun¬ 
try  tjiere.  are  two  extremes  of  opinions,  both 
meeting  in  the  same  thing— the  fanatical,  de¬ 
voted  friends  of  slavery,  and  the  par  excel¬ 
lence  friends  of  immediate  emancipation. — 
Speech  on  Emancipation.  Daily  Globe ,  April 
16,  1862.  r 

ETE  OPPOSES  CONFISCATION. 

.  “  I  believe,  therefore,  that  the  second  sec¬ 
tion  involves  the  emancipation  by  act  of 
Congress  of  the  great  masses  within  the 
States  where  the  insurrection  exists. 

It  is  but  fair  to  assume  that,  at  least,  the 
owners  of  one  half  of  all  the  slaves  in  those 
States  do  sympathize  with  the  rebellion.— 
ihe  Senator  from  Kansas  (Mr.  Pomeroy,) 
says  that  seven-eighths  of  them  do.  That 
would  make  the  case  still  stronger;  and  my 
friend  from  Ohio  (Mr.  Wade,)  says  “still  bet¬ 
ter.”.  Mr.  President,  what  I  say  in  relation 
to  it  is,  that  it  makes  the  question  still  graver 
and  the  responsibility  of  passing  such  an  act 
still  heavier. — Speech  on  Confiscation .  Daily 
Globe ,  May  6*  1862. 

WHO  CAUSED  TIIE  REBELLION. 

Mr.  President,  if  Calhoun  had  been  exe¬ 
cuted  for  his  treason  in  1833,  there  would 
leave  been  no  rebellion  now.  He  was  the  arch 
traitor  who,  like  Satan  in  Paradise,  brought 

death  into  the  world  and  all  our  wroe. _ 

Speech  on  Confiscation.  Daily  Globe ,  May  (5 
1862.  ’  J  ’ 


The  cotton-gin,  the  profits  of  unpaid 
]  labor,  and  tropical  products  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  It  rested  in  the  breath  of  one 
man,  John  C.  Calhoun  ;  who  “forced  the  is¬ 
sue  ”  against  the  will  of  the  civilized  world. 

IIE  ASKS  FOB  A  SPECIAL  COMMITTEE. 

“  And  now,  sir,  upon  this  very  point,  con¬ 
tested  as  it;  is  here,  I  still  believe  that  if  re¬ 
ferred  to  five  or  seven  gentlemen  of  this  body, 
to  be  selected  by  the  President  pro  tempore , 
(Mr.  loot,)  it  would  be  possible  to  draw  a 
bill  in  which  all  who  desire  earnest  and  effi¬ 
cient  practical  measures  to  suppress  the  re¬ 
bellion  can  agree. — Speech  on  Confiscation. 
Daily  Globe ,  May  6,  1862. 

WHAT  SENATOR  TRUMBULL  SAID  IN  REPLY. 

I  cannot  see  how  an}r  five  Senators  here 
can  determine  these  constitutional  questions 
for  forty -five  Senators.  If  there  is  a  feeling 
m  the  Senate  on  the  part  of  those  opposed 
to  an  efficient  measure  of  confiscation— if 
there  is  a  disposition  to  bring  in  amendments, 
you  may  have  forty  amendments  offered  the 
moment  your  committee  reports.  I  shall  not 
despair.  .  I  shall  not  say  with  the  Senator 
from  Ohio,  that  nothing  will  be  done ;  but  I 
admit  that  it  is  discouraging.”— Trumbull's 
Speech,  Dady  Globe ,  May  7,  1862. 

THE  “EARNEST  AND  EFFICIENT”  MEASURES 

THAT  MR.  DOOLITTLE  FAVORED  AND  VOTED 

FOR. 

M  henever  it  shall  be  deemed  necessary 
to  the  speedy  and  successful  termination  of 
a  rebellion  by  the  President,  he  is  hereby 
authorized  by  such  commissioners  as  he  shall 
appoint,  to  sequester  and  seize  the  property 
real  and  personal,  of  such  persons  as  shall 
bear  arms  against  the  United  States  *  * 

to  hold,  occupy,  rent  and  control  for  the 
United  States  until  the  ordinary  course  of 
'judicial  proceedings  shall  be  restored  in  the 
State  or  district  where  the  same  is  situated, 
and  in  all  cases  until  the  owner  of  said  prop¬ 
erty  can  be  proceeded  against  by  legal  prose¬ 
cution ,  but  no  person  holden  to  service,  com¬ 
monly  called  slaves,  shall  be  taken  under 
YJ?7s7  sej'tl0n- — Senator  Collamer's  proposed 
bill,  afterwards  reported  by  committee  of  tice 
and  passed  by  the  Senate. 

SENATOR  TRUMBULL  IN  REPLY. 

“Now,  I  do  not  propose  to  put  this  rebel¬ 
lion  down  by  the  courts.  I  think  there  is  no 
more  trouble  in  taking  the  real  estate  of  a 
rebel  than  there  is  in  taking  his  life,  and  1 
would  just  as  soon  think  of  einpanneling  a 
jurj  when  our  armies  met  to  know  whether 
we  should  kill  the  enemy  that  was  shooting 
upon  us,  as  of  empaneling  a  jury  to  know 


« 


4 


RECORD  OF  THE  IIO>'.  JAMES  R.  DOOLITTLE, 


whether  we  Can  take  his  real  estates. ’V- 
Trumbull' $  Speech,  Dally  Globe ,  May  17, 
1862. 

Mr.  Sumner- — “  If  the  question  is  between 
the  consideration  of  this  bill  of  the  special 
committee  and  the  tax  bill,  I  am  for  the  tax  : 
bill.”  .  ,  ,  •  a- A 

Mr.  Fessenden — ‘‘Unquestionably;  and 
why  ?  ” 

Mr.  Sumner  — u  Because  the  tax  bill  is  a 
reality — there  is  something  in  it.  The  other 
bill  is  not  a  reality — there  is  nothing  in  it.” 

S'  5jt  *  *  *  ^ 

Mr.  Doolittle — “  Ts  there  any  difficulty  in 
indicting  them  ?  (the  rebe's.)  *  *  *  ; 

Can  you  not  indict  a  man  in  Virginia  ?  Sup¬ 
pose  your  court  is  held  in  Washington  ;  have 
they  not  already  been  indicted  there?” 

Mr.  Carlisle — “  Yes,  sir.” 

Mr.  Doolittle — “  Can  they  not  be  indicted 
in  Kentucky?  Can  they  not  be  indicted  in 
Tennessee?” — Daily  Globe,  May  21,  1862. 

If  it  is  admitted  ;  can  they  be  indicted  by 
a  jury  . of  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama, 
Mississippi  or  Louisania  ?  And  if  they  can¬ 
not  be,  then  was  not  Mr.  Sumner  correct 
when  he  said  there  was  nothing  in  the  bill. 

Mr.  Doolittle — “  I  believe  there  will  be  such 
a  thing  as  a  hemp  tax  applied  to  these  reb- 
ejsdM.^  a  «*/./ 

Mr.  Vdade-y-44  AYhat ;  under  this  bill?” 

Mr.  Doolittle — “  They  are  punished  with 
death  ;  or  with  jinc  and  impriticunnealT 

Mr.  Wade — “  It  is  optional  with  the  Presi¬ 
dent  which.” 

Mr.  Trumbull- — “Is  not  death  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  treason  rioic  ?'' 

“  I  merely  want  to  say  to  the  Senator  from 
"W  isconsin  that  it  does  not  come  with  a  very 
good  grace  for  a  Senator  who  gets  up  and  de-  I 
nounces  everybody  else  as  dogmatical, — 
to  talk  about  this  being  the  most  efficient 
bill  that  there  is,  and  he  knows  it,  and  about 
its  going  to  accomplish  a  great  deal  more 
than  any  other  bill.  He  talks,  too,  about 
people  being  set  in  their  opinions,  and  then 
he  says  this  bill  punishes  with  death ; 
and  he  reads  it.  Does  not  the  Senator  from 
Wisconsin  know  that  the  punishment  for 
treason  now ,  ii  death  ?  Does  this  bill  make 
it  death  ?  *  *  *  *  *  ‘ 

“The  only  effect  of  this  bill  is  to  mitiyate 
the  punishment  for  treason.  The  only  effect 
cf  this  bill  is  to  allow  the  chief  of  traitors, 
instead  of  swinging  by  hemp,  to  escape  with 
a  fine,  as  for  a  misdemeanor ,  or  with  fine  and 
imprisonment. — Daily  Globe,  May  21, 1862.  t 


And  he  might  have  added :  “  not  even  with 
that  until  they  are  first  convicted  of  treason 

b~!  a  South-  Carolina  jury.” 


Mr.  Sumner — “  Mr.  President,  there  is  a 
character  in  one  of  Dickens’  novels,  who  says 
to  another;  4  Take  a  glass  of  water,  put  into 
it  a  little  piece  of  orange  peel  and  then  make 
believe  very  hard,  and  you  will  have  a  strong 
drink.’  Now,  sir,  I  would  apply  those  words 
to  the  bill  of  the  committee.  It  is  like  a  glass 
of  water  with  a  bit  of  orange  peel  in  it ;  if 
you  make  believe  very  hard  you  may  have  a 
strong  bill.  To  my  mind  it  amounts  to  no¬ 
thing.  It  only  plays  with  the  subject.  At 
a  moment  when  the  life  of  our  Republic  is 
struck  at.  Senators  propose  to  proceed  as  if 
by  an  indictment  in  a  criminal  court,  I  have 
tuerefore  no  sympathy  with  the  bill.  It  is 
inadequate  to  the  occasion.  It  is  a  perfect 
nonentity.” — Daily  Globe,  May  22,  1862. 

Mr.  Trumbull — “I  repeat,  for  there  are 
some  Republican  Senators  who  are  not  the 
friends  of  confiscation,  uniting  with  the 
avowed  enemies  of  confiscation  that  have 
placed  this  amendment  before  the  Senate  ; 
for  there  are  republican  Senators  who  have 
avowed  time  and  again  that  they  were  op¬ 
posed  to  confiscation — and  'there  are,  let  me 
tell  the  Senator  from  Maine,  members  of  the 
very  committee  that  reported  this  bill,  who 
boast  that  there  is  no  confiscation  in  it. 

sjt  sje  5*s 


I  do  not  wonder  at  the  sensitiveness  of 
gentlemen  here.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the 
sensitiveness  which  certain  Senators  have 
manifested,  and  at  the  zeal  with  which  they 
spring  to  their  feet  when  the  history  of  this 
matter  is  attended  to.  The  people  of  this 
country  are  in  earnest  in  this'war.  *  * 

They. have  suffered — a  thousand,  yea  more 
than  ten  thousand,  and  I  do  not  know  but 
twenty  thousand  of  Iqyal  soldiers  from  Illin¬ 
ois  have  been  buried  since  this  war  com¬ 
menced,  and  since  they  entered  the  public 
service,  hundreds  of  their  bodies  have  been 
borne  back  and  deposited  in  the  soil  of  the 
State  whence,  they  went  forth  to  maintain 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union. 


AVe  are  now  assessing  heavy  taxes  to  pay 
the  expenses  of  maintaining  our  armies,  and 
in  my  own  state  there  are  hundreds  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  dollars  worth  of  property  held  by 
traitors  in  arms  against  the  government  and 
I  receive  letters  almost  daily  inquiring  why 
it  is  that  some  law  is  not  passed  to  appropri¬ 
ate  this  property  to  the  payment  of  the  ex¬ 
penses  of  the  war  that  these  trhitors  have 
brought  upon  the  country.” — Daily  Globe , 
June  .30,  1862. 


Air.  Sumner — “  Of  course  the  substitute 
is  open  to  amendments.  *  *  * 

I  have  several  to  move  ;  I  send  one  to  the 
chair,  to  insert  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 

section,  the  following : 

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IX  THE 


T  WENT  V-SE  VEX  Til  COXGEESS. 


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there  shall  be  no  exclusion  of  any  witness  on 
account  of,  cylor." — lhntu  Globe,  June  80,  | 

Iv;-' 

LO»>-. 

On  whijh  amendment  the  vote  stood: 

“  Yeas — Messrs.  Cuhndlcr,  Grimes,  Har- 
l»n,  Howard,  llovvt/,  King,  Lane1,  of  Kansas, 
Morrill,  Pomeroy,'  Smarter,  Trumbull,  Wade,  \ 
\Yilkinson  and  Wilmot — 14. 

Nays — Messrs.  Anthony,  Drotening.  Car¬ 
lisle,  Clark,  Collamer,  Cowan,  Davis,  Dixon, 
DOOLITTLE,  Fessenden, Foot,  Foster, Harris, 
Henderson,  Lane,  of  Indiana,  Nesmith,  Pow¬ 
ell,  Pearce,  Sherman,  Simmons,  Star?1:,  Ten 
Eyck,  Mill y,  Wihon,  of  Missouri,  and  Wright 
— 25: — Daily  Globe.  June  30,  18,02. ' 


Thus  a  loyal  negao  was  not  allowed  to  tes¬ 
tify  against  a  rebel  white  man,  and  this  too 
by  a  vote  of  a  Senator  from  a  State  where 
colored  persons  are  admitted  as  witnesses  on 
an  equal  footing  with  white  persons  in  all 


her  courts. 


On  the  adoption  of  the  bill  as  it  was  amend¬ 
ed  in  committee,  the  vote  stood : 

“Yeas — Messrs.  Anthony,  Drowning ,  Col¬ 
lier,  Clark,  Cowan,  Dixon,  DOOLITTLE, 
Fessenden,  Foot,  Foster,  Harlan,  Harris,  Hen¬ 
derson,  Howe,  Nesmith,  Simmons,  Stark, 
Ten  E'yck  and  Willey — 10. 

“Nays’ — Messrs.  Chandler,  Davis,  Grimes, 
Hale,  Howard,  King,  Lane,  of  Indiana,  Lane, 
of  Kansas,  Moriil,  Pomeroy,  Sherman,  Bum-  \ 
her,  Trumbull,  Wade ,  Wilkinson,  Wilmot  i 
and  Wright — 1 7. — Daily  Globe,  June  80,  | 
1802. 

Mr.  Sumner — “On  the  final  passage  I  shall  1 
vote  for  this  bill — not  because  I  believe  it  to 
be  much  in  itself,  but  because  I  believe  if 
adopted  now  by  the  Senate,  it  must  be  re¬ 
turned  to  the  other  House  and  through  the 
firmness  of  that  body  we  shall  have  a  chance 
yet  of  having  a  bill  that  will  be  a  reality.” 

Mr.  Doolittle — “  I  hope  the  Senate  will  now 
ber  witness  that  here  is  another  threat  from 
the  Senator  from  Massachusetts.” 

Mr.  Chandler — (when  his  name  was  called) 
— 1  wish  simply  to  say  that  I  vote  ‘nay’  be-  ! 
cause  I  do  not  believe  the  bill  is  worth  one 
stiver.  It  is  utterly  worthless  as  a  bill  to 
confiscate  property.”  (“Order.”—' Daily 
Globe,  June  80,  1802. 


This  bill  was  sent  to  the  House  of  Rep¬ 
resentatives  for  its  approval.  But,  as  proph¬ 
esied  by  Mr.  Sumner,  that  House  indignantly 
rejected  it,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  refuse 
to  ask  for  a  committee  of  conference. 


Finally  the  present  efficient  Confiscation 
Bill,  originating  in  the  House,  was  passed 

by  the  Senate,  notwithstanding  it  contains 


the  same  <tOnstuutionql  objection  that  dir. 
Doolittle  opposed  so  strenuously,  but  finally 
supported  by  him  when  it  was  ready  to  pass 
independent  of  his  aid,  just  as  he  now  sus¬ 
tains  the  President’s  Proclamation  of  Eman¬ 
cipation  and  loudly  declares  its  necessity  and 
constitutionalitv,  notwitstanding  he  sneered 
at  its  policy  not  three  days  before  it  was 
proclaimed  by  the  President. 

Some  of  the  sneers  will  form  a  fitting  ap¬ 
pendix  to  his  record  upon  this  point : 

“  This  war  will  end  in  securing  the  free¬ 
dom  of  the  negro.  This  is  inevitable  with¬ 
out  the  introduction  of  pa per  bullets,  confis¬ 
cation  laws ,  or  edicts  of  emancipation .” — 
Speech  at  lla.cine  and  other  places. 

“The  Proclamation  will  do  no  hurt  nor 
good.  It  don’t  amount  to  anything  any  way. 
The  first  thing  the  President  ought  to  have 
done  was  to  hang  the  rn  fenud  croakers,  <ind 
suppress  all  such  f unaticab pa p>ers  as  the  New 
York  Tribune  and  Chicago  Tribune. 

The  above  is  Senator  Doolittle?s  reply  a 
day  or  two  after  the  President  issued  his 
Proclamation,  to  the  ravings  of  an  avowed 
secessionist,  in  the  public  office  of  a  hotel, 
and  in  the  presence  of  several  prominent 
Republicans,  who  will  furnish  proof  of  its 
correctness  if  Senator  D.  desires  it. 

HE  DODGES  A  VOTE. 

ITis  course  on  the  bill  for  cultivating  the 
lands  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  in  cot¬ 
ton  by  Government  agents,  wherein  he 
DODGED  the  vote  for  the  purpose  of  aiding 
the  secessionists  and  opposing  the  bill  is  not 
forgotten  by  his  constituents. 

The  character  of  the  bill  which  he  oppos¬ 
ed  and  dodged  the  vote  is  given  in  the  fol¬ 
lowing  extract  from  the  special  correspond¬ 
ent  of  the  Chicago  Tribune  of  July  last: 

Mr.  Foster’s  bill  for  the  cultivation  of  cot¬ 
ton  lands  in  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  vir¬ 
tually  emancipates  all  the  slaves  in  these  sec¬ 
tions  now  in  our  possession.  It  does  this 
by  the  simple  and  natural  process  of  not 
recognizing  any  such  things  as  slavery  there, 
but  regarding  the  blacks  as  “indigent  per¬ 
sons,”  who  have  come  among  us  asking  for 
labor  and  support,  and  entitled  to  clothing, 
medical  care,  instruction  and  wages  in  return 
for  their  labor.  Mr.  Carlile  was  very  much 
excited  when  the  bill  was  put  on  its  passage 
in  the  Senate.  He  gnashed  his  teeth  against 
it,  roared  against  it,  tried  to  get  it  postponed, 
and  resorted  to  all  kinds  of  hateful  expedi- 


6 


RECORD  OF  THE  HON  JAMES  R.  DOOLIT’JXE, 


ents  to  defeat  it,  but  it  passed  by  a  decisive  I 
majority.  This  is  progress.  The  bill  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
will  come  forward  in  a  few  days,  and,  I  doubt 
not  it  will  receive  the  support  of  the  Presi¬ 
dent.  Another  progressive  step  is  the  em¬ 
ployment  of  “contrabands”  to  bring  news  of  j 
me  enemy’s  movements.  This  plan  has 
been  adopted  in  one  portion  of  the  army  of 
the  Potomac  with  the  most  gratifying  results. 
The  only  amazing  thing  is  that  it  should  not 
have  been  resorted  to  before,  as  a  measure,  j 
The  fact  that  it  was  not  shows  that  in  the  ! 
minds  of  certain  generals  slavery  is  (or  has 
been)  somewhat  dearer  than  the  safety  of 
their  own  soldiers. 

Senator  Dooiittle  betrayed  his  ignorance 
upon  the  subject  matter  of  the  bill  in  open 
Senate  which  was  noticed  and  rebuked  by 
his  fellow-senators.  The  following  is  the 
vote  in  which  he  refused  to  cooperate  with 
the  republicans  by  dodging  : 

Yeas — Messrs.  Anthony,  Chandler,  Clark,  j 
Collainer,  Dixon,  Fessenden,  Foote,  Foster,  ! 
Grimes,  llale,  Harlan,  Howard,  Howe,  King,  | 
Lane,  Morrill,  Pomeroy,  Sherman,  Simmons,  I 
Sumner,  Te 
Wilmot,  an 

Nays — M 

Davis,  Henderson,  Kennedy,  McDougal, 
Pearce,  Powell,  Rice,  Saulsbury,  Thomson, 
Wilson  of  Mo.  and  Wright.  Total — 14. 

Mr.  Doolittle  left  the  chamber  three  min¬ 
utes  before  the  vote,  having  first  voted 
against  a  motion  to  postpone  the  special  or¬ 
der  for  the  purpose  of  taking  up  the  bill. 


nEyck,  Trumbull,  Wade,  Willey, 
d  Wilson  of  Mass.  Total — 20. 

essrs.  Browning,  Carlile,  Cowan, 


IIE  CLOGS  TIIE  EMANCIPATION  BILL. 

Senator  Doolittle  rose  in  his  place  in  the 
Senate,  and  when  the  bill  for  the  emancipa¬ 
tion  of  the  slaves  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
was  under  discussion,  moved  the  following 
new  section  to  the  law,  which,  by  the  aid  of 
the  secessionists  and  pro-slavery  Senators, 
was  carried  by  the  following  vote : 

And  be,  it  further  enacted,  That  the  sum 
of  $100,000,  out  of  any  money  in  the  Treas¬ 
ury  no  otherwise  appropriated,  is  hereby  ap¬ 
propriated,  to  be  expended  under  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to 
aid  in  the  colonization  and  settlement  of  such 
tree  persons  of  African  descent  now  residing 
in  said  District,  including  those  to  be  libera¬ 
ted  by  this  act,  as  may  desire  to  emigrate  be¬ 
yond  the  limits  of  the  United  States  as  the 
President  may  determine  :  Provided,  That 
the  expenditure  for  this  purpose  shall  not  ■ 
exceed  $100  for  each  emigrant. 


The  Presiding  Officer — On  this  amendment 
the  yeas  and  nnys  are  asked. 

The  yeas  and  nays  were  ordered. 

The  Secretary  proceeded  to  call  the  roll. 

Mr.  Wilkinson  (when  his  name  was  called) 
said :  I  paired  off  on  this  question  with  my 
colleague,  who  is  in  favor  of  the  amendment, 
while  I,  if  I  voted,  should  vote  against  it. 

The  result  was  the  announced — yeas  27, 
nays  10;  as  follows: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Anthony,  Browning,  Colla- 
mer,  Davis,  Dixon,  DOOLITTLE,  Foot,  Har¬ 
lan,  Harris,  Henderson,  Howe,  King,  Lane  of 
Indiana,  Lane  of  Kansas,  Latham,  McDougall, 
Nesmith,  Sherman,  Stark,  Ten  Eyck,  Trum¬ 
bull,  Wade,  Willey,  Wilmot,  Wilson  of  Mass¬ 
achusetts,  Wilson  of  Missouri,  and  Wright 
—27. 

Nays — Messrs.  Chandler,  Clark,  Fessen¬ 
den,  Foster,  Grimes,  Hale,  Howard,  Morrill, 
Pomeroy,  and  Sumner — 10. — Daily  Globe. 

The  Washington  correspondent  of  the 
Chicago  Trijtune  of  that  period  was  sneered 
at  by  Senator  Doolittle,  and  charged  with  a 
desire  to  levy  black-mail  upon  him.  To 
which  the  said  correspondent  replies  as  fol¬ 
lows,  saying  that  he  “  did  believe  and  may 
“have  so  telegraphed,  that  Mr.  Doolittle’s 
“  colonization  speech  was  not  considered  ger- 
“  mane  to  the  bill  and  did  somewhat  embar- 
“  rass  its  friends.  I  shall  tell  the  truth,  as  I 
“  see  it  of  Mr.  Senator  Doolittle,  as  of  every 
“  other  member  of  Congress,  whatever  its  ef- 
“  feet  upon  his  prospects  as  Senator  or  as 
“  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court.” 

This  betrays  an  idea  prevalent  at  Wash¬ 
ington  at  that  time,  that  the  Senator  was 
setting  the  pins  for  a  Supreme  Court  Judge- 
ship,  and  was  not  so  thoughtful  to  the  rights 
and  interests  of  his  constituents  as  he  should 
have  been. 

After  the  Senator’s  return  home  it  will  be 
recollected  that  the  papers  whose  editors 
were  under  obligation  to  him  for  offices,  de¬ 
nied  the  charge  that  he  was  fishing  for  a 
Judgeship,  among  which  was  the  Milwaukee 
Sentinel. 

To  this  the  Chicago  Tribune  replies: 

If  the  Sentinel  announced  that  Senator 
Doolittle  “has  never  been”  a  candidate  for 
the  Supreme  Bench,  it  announced  an  untruth 
— that  is  all.  The  fact  that  Senator  Doolit¬ 
tle  wrote  a  letter  denying  the  story  “three 
months  ago,  ’’(that  is  about  the  8th  of  May), 
proves  nothing,  for  it  gained  currency  as 
long  ago  as  last  December  or  January.  It 


IN'  THE  TWENTY-SEVENTH  CONGRESS.  7 

i 


w  true  fun,  and  has  been  so,  until  within 
a  briof  period,  ever  since.  Ask  any  of  Mr. 
Doolittle’s  colleagues  in  the  Senate  whether 
he  was  not  a  candidate  for  Judgo  of  the  Su¬ 
premo  Court. 

This,  then,  is  doubtless  his  excuse  for  re¬ 
garding  the  wishes  of  his  pro-slavery  fellow 
Senators  more  than  the  wishes  of  the  people 
who  elect  ;d  him.  Let  them  decide  if  it  is  a 
valid  excuse. 

We  pass  over  hi3  vote  against  giving  free¬ 


dom  to  the  wife  ami  children  of  a  slavo  who 
had  done  the  country  signal  service,  because 
we  cannot  get  hold  of  the  Su{  plement  to  the 
Daily  Globe  of  July  12,  ’62.  Those  who 
have  access  to  it  can  read  his  shameful  record. 

t 

It  is  for  the  Legislature  of  Wiscorifcin  to  say 
whether  a  man  with  such  a  record  is  a  prop¬ 
er  man  to  represent  them  in  the  United 
States  Senate. 


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